The women shooters of New Zealand and Canada strike gold in the shooting pairs competitions at Bisley.

Borrell and Stanton won gold by one point

New Zealand’s Teresa Borrell and Nadine Stanton took gold in the women’s double trap pairs and Canadians Kim Eagles and Dorothy Hare won the women’s 10m air pistol pairs event.

Borrell and Stanton beat Canada’s Cynthia Meyer and Susan Nattrass by a single point, 137-136. Australian duo Suzie Trindall and Suzanne Balogh took the bronze with 131.

Stanton said that her aggressive frame of mind helped her to hit the target: “I was in a mind to blow the smithereens out of the clays.” Silver medallist Meyer has enjoyed her Manchester 2002 experience and was pleased with her medal: “They call it the Friendly Games and it really is, I’ve had a lot of fun.”

In the women’s 10m air pistol pairs Eagles and Hare took the gold for Canada with a total of 747, just one point off the Games record set in 1998 by Australian duo Annemarie Forder and Sri Naulton.

Forder had to settle for bronze with new partner Lalita Yauhleuskaya this time though after making some costly misses in her last ten shots. Sheila Kanungo and Shweta Chaudhary of India took the silver medals on countback after scoring 744 points.

Eagles was pleased with her medal, but said that most of the credit should go to her team mate: “We were expecting a medal of some sort and we’re very pleased it was gold. I didn’t shoot as well as I could and Dorothy really won the medal for us.”

Australia’s former gold medallist Forder admitted that her mistakes cost the Aussies the silver medal, she said: “Lalita shot well but my last ten let us down.” But she remained positive about the rest of Manchester 2002 adding: “I just want to improve for the individual competition.”